Tag Archives: La Sagra Bahamas

One of the prettiest small birds to photograph on Abaco is the Crescent-eyed, or Cuban, Pewee Contopus caribaeus. These small flycatchers are as interested in your struggles with your camera settings and your ‘stealthy’ (yet clumsy) approach, as you are in their cute poses. It’s a symbiotic relationship – you may get nice pictures, they have a benign laugh at your efforts.

This bird was one of a pair we found at a magical corner of scrubland at a crossroad of tracks between the edge of the pine forest and a backcountry of derelict and overgrown sugar cane fields – the perfect habitat for a wide variety of species. The pewees had a nest hidden deep in the undergrowth, but were tame enough to be untroubled by our presence. They kept calm and carried on as usual.

These little birds are resident in Cuba and the Northern Bahamas. I have previously posted photos of them, taken by the beach at Casuarina, HERE. They are the smallest flycatchers – tyrannidae – on Abaco, a family that includes LA SAGRA’S FLYCATCHER, and the larger Loggerhead & Gray Kingbirds. Here’s a recording of cuban pewees made on Abaco (credit: Jesse Fagan / Xeno-Canto)

LA SAGRA’S FLYCATCHERMyiarchus sagrae is anon-migratory bird quite frequently seen in the Abaco pine forest and scrubland. It is resident throughout the year on Abaco, as elsewhere within its distribution range (see map below) – also occasionally found as a vagrant in southern Florida. It is a ‘tyrant flycatcher’, a passerine species found throughout the Americas that includes kingbirds, pewees and phoebes.

The conservation status of this flycatcher is ‘Least Concern’

The LSF’s natural habitat is subtropical forest and rough scrubland. It builds its nest in a tree cavity or similar natural hole, and usually lays a clutch of two to four eggs.

Adult La Sagra’s Flycatchers, unlike many avians, are very similar in appearance in both sexes.

As the name suggests, the species is primarily insectivore, fly-catching in the undergrowth and low scrub. However these birds also eat berries and seeds. Their call is a high pitched single or double noted sound described as ‘wink’. Here’s an example from the Bahamas by Paul Driver @ Xeno-Canto

And who or what the heck was La Sagra? The answer is: multi-talented Spanish botanist Ramón Dionisio José de la Sagra y Peris(1798–1871), who was also a writer, economist, sociologist, politician, anarchist, and founder of the world’s first anarchist journal El Porvenir (“The Future”). At one time he lived in Cuba and became director of Havana’s Botanical Garden; his name lives on arguably more significantly in ornithological than in anarchist circles (actually, an ‘anarchist circle’ must surely be a contradiction in terms…)

I note in passing that La Sagra is a provincial area in Spain, an Italian festive celebration, a chocolatier, or a small comet – all of which meanings may have to be negotiated online before you get to the flycatcher…

Ramón Dionisio José de la Sagra y PerisFinally, to continue with the recently introduced avian philatelic theme, here are stamps from the Cayman Islands and Cuba featuring the La Sagra’s Flycatcher. The Cuban stamp commemorates the death of Juan Gundlach, the man who chose La Sagra’s name to bestow on this bird